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• removing debris and dead or dying Krikis from the
hive,
• making food, and so on.
The last two weeks of any worker’s life are spent as a
field Krikis; her first journey away from home marks
an important milestone in her life. Field Krikis forage
in surrounding areas up to eight or ten miles from the
hive for raw materials, including pollen, nectar, water,
and sap from various trees. This is extremely dangerous
work, and many field Krikis quickly succumb to exhaustion, predators, or cold weather.

Warriors & “Bright” Krikis
The primary difference between warrior Krikis and either their fellow workers or other Krikis is their lifespan.
Very few hive Krikis survive longer than a year or two,
while warriors can survive indefinitely out in the wilderness among the hives and the frontiers. While warriors have no role back at the hive, another reason warriors rarely return to their original hives is a noticeable
lack of anyone from their same egg clutch or generation
alive, including a queen.
Warriors exhibit adaptive intelligence and show personal initiative outside the hive imperative; presumably
royalty and administrator-workers do the same. Drones,
by comparison, are not intelligent and perform their
tasks guided solely by instinct. Cognitive function, selfawareness, and freewill are relatively new concepts to
the Krikis, racially, specially, and individually. They are
the impetus for expansion and empire, the driving force
behind conflict with the other Khitan races, and the
cause of deep-seated confusion as the Krikis seek a new
balance between self-awareness and their traditional
hive mentality.
Warriors, administrators and most royalty are selfaware and intelligent, although the active queen herself is barely more cognizant than a drone. She serves
the hive unwaveringly, but her motivations are instinctual, not willful. Collectively, “bright” Krikis have virtually no regard for their drone brethren, treating them as
less than slaves. They are non-entities, treated with the
same regard humans might treat tools. Only in times of

hive emergencies, when all the drones are motivated by
the queen to help defend, do the intelligent take direct
notice of them at all.
Oddly, Krikis warriors are more subject to fear than
their less intelligent brethren. Drones, bereft of independent thought, take care of their specific, laborious
tasks and seldom confront danger, but when it enters a
hive and the signals go out, drones defend the hive fearlessly. Drones selflessly sacrifice themselves against any
perceived threat without regard for their personal safety.
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Warriors, on the other hand, are completely self-aware
and understand the value and necessity of retreat, of
survival to fight another day. They recognize that when
the odds are against them, this manifests itself as fear.
In fact, the flight response is a relatively new concept
for them, racially speaking, and officers acknowledge
its utility both as a motivator and as a survival tactic.
Successful applications of fear are applauded and even
rewarded in the ranks.

Drones
Drones encompass a menagerie of subgroups, physiologically adapted to the many tasks necessary for continuing the hive, from tunneling and chamber manufacture to gathering, farming, and caring for the young.
Drones are physically bulkier and shorter than queens,
and their compound eyes encompass nearly the entirety of their heads. Drones are often thought of as “male”
but in fact are really just a means for one queen to mate
with another. Generally unable to feed or groom themselves, and performing no known chores, drone Krikis
are important to hive reproduction, but on an everyday
basis they contribute mainly to its protection. Drones
serve as a living shield against attack. Drone eggs fill
cells closest to a hive’s exterior walls and surface, making drone larvae the first (and often the only) casualties

suffered during an attack. Worker Krikis are considered
more valuable to a hive than the drones who sacrifice
themselves first.
Drones gather with others from outside their hives
in congregation areas in the neutral grounds between
them. Here, they wait to mate with new queens. Newly
hatched queens must find their own way to these places
in order to mate. Drones must return to a hive by nightfall in order to receive food. Drones are expelled from
the hive during the winter, where they soon die.

Customs & Culture
There is very little culture or society among the Krikis, aside from the hive nature of their race and the
organization that comes with it. However, these recent
increases in intellect among the warrior castes have
started to change Krikis life. Even with those creeping
changes, there are yet many customs and standards
within Krikis hives.
Krikis build their underground hives on the same
general plan: brood chamber on the bottom levels, food
storage on the upper levels. The entrance can be either
at the top of the hive or several miles distant and connected to the hive by a tunnel. Multiple entrances must
be easily defended, which is why very few hives have